Ben 10: The Eon Prime Chronicles
by DatDude
Summary: Hidden deep in the shattered reality of the 12th dimension there lies a crooked house full of crooked people from across the omniverse. These are there stores, and the story of the monster that watches over them.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter one "House of stories"

In every given multiverse there are clusters of similar universes. Similar realities can be charted into a finite set and plotted into a curve based on their relation to any given prime reality. Those closer to the prime reality and most similar, and those furthest the most different.

Beyond the edges of that curve is nothing but malformed realms too twisted for life to survive. In our central finite curve, there exists a reality that defies this pattern. A world near the prime reality not twisted by fate but by choices made and futures decided. Where would be heroes failed, and would be conquerors along with them. Those that brave the dangers of the omniverse know this place as "Dimension 12". A far too simple name for a dreadfully complicated realm. Now it is a warped place where killer machine gods roam, and time itself ticks sideways.

It was here I came to build my crooked home with its limitless rooms and shadowed halls.

Its backyard forever in sunlight and summer's warmth looking out into a forest that knows no end. Its front yard is shadowed in the darkest night and is battered by the worst of winters ice and snow. To its sides are alleyways where the light won't find you, and silent things walk. Never go there my children for the silent things prefer to walk alone. Those that try to walk with them are never seen again. Though they are heard from time to time on rare nights in the front yard when the wind is silent. Beyond that is a sea of floating islands, machine gods, and more terrors subtle and gross. Also from time to time one of my children off on an errand, or off misbehaving.

Walk with me my dear as I return home. Meet a few of the lost souls I have given shelter, and see how I treat those in my care.

I return home through the front yard watchful for silent things that may have walked further than most. The door opens with a creek as always it is crooked after all, but never ever locked, my children. All are welcome, and not one of the terrors outside dare enter this humble abode.

There in the front room, I find the first of my children. Once a little girl lost, and now a relatively happy member of the family. Relatively because her little crush has gone causing trouble. Not for us mind you, but for himself. He thinks he can just return to the world. Go back to the bright shiny places in the omniverse and just step back into his life like nothing's changed. We've all changed inside and we all know it each and every one.

I see her there kneeling by the fireplace reading her favorite book over and over. Poor thing she's not yet given up on returning to the light. Probably dear Williams influence. She turns her head to look at me over her shoulder. Right away I see her pretty red hair is draped over her face.

Gwendolynne looks up at me with big red glowing irises, and eyes black with spreading cracks extending out onto her adorable face. Those eyes are so sad, and tears stain her favorite red and white shirt down to its cartoon mushroom logo at its center. I hug her while speaking softly.

"You shouldn't hide from it my little one. Here in this house, it can not grow inside you. Stop running from it my little one. Stop running, turn and face it."

For a moment I just hold the child while she shivers. After a while, it ends and she speaks this first of my lost little ones does. I hear in her voice an echo of that power inside her. Gwen's like her have moved worlds, and I know my little Gwendolynne might too one day.

"I will. I promise I will. It keeps trying to bite me, but I won't let it!"

Putting my hand on my shoulder I put my helmeted head to her face.

"Oh, my child do more than that. Take a bite of your own."

I leave her to her book, and her inner ghostfreak infection knowing my little one will be OK in the end.

Moving deeper into my home I hear the sound of skittering legs and smell chilled air in my warm home. For a moment I fear someone's foolish enough to have opened a side window! Then I realize where I am and whose room I'm passing. Pausing for a moment I wish I had time to get more comfortable. This room doesn't house my most troubled child but he's close.

I knock on the door as anyone should. It's my house, but I give the rooms to the children.

At the sound of my knocking the skittering gets worse for just a moment as does the cold. Then everything goes far far too silent for my liking. I open the door oh so slowly. Inside I find a Lufferlang spider the size of a small dog. It's bloated with offspring and it's eight double jointed legs struggled to make it skitter around. It was looking to the center of the room were my Zak is sitting cross-legged on the floor his eyes afire with power so ancient it almost defies understanding almost. The beasts many eyes turn from the boy to me and true to its legendary reputation it image is terrifying even to me. It leaps at my head peeking into the room just enough to give it a target. My armor thankfully has defenses both active and passive. It freezes in the air and I take a moment to recover my witts silently. It wouldn't do to have the children see me out of sorts dressed like this.

I step into a room that's a mess of webbing and broken furniture. I speak keeping my voice a soft thing without anger the boy looks exhausted. He speaks before I can his voice a distant thing full of false enthusiasm.

"Greetings and Bienvenue dear …."

I cut him off some things you just have to be firm on the power in names is one of them.

"Eon Prime in this armor son, and nothing else. Zak, you know my rule about pets."

He slumps over the ancient light of KUR gone from his eyes. Something else even older and stronger is there now fear.

"Just ask first. I know I just … the Lufferlang are scary I knew it be tough to handle it. I wanted to get better that's all. Then I found out it had babies so it was that much harder. I had the house make it cold thinking it was cold-blooded. It should have gotten sleepy."

Putting my hand on his shoulder I try to reassure him.

"It went looking for hot blood to banish the cold you know better. This isn't the house of horrors you grew up in dear Zachary. I'm not angry I'm not casting anyone out. I am simply worried about my chargers ALL of them. This pet of yours could have caused a stir if it let it's hundred or so offspring loose in our home."

He's still so afraid this one. Such a horrible thing a Saturday lost in Weird World. I think my home reminds him of that awful place and that makes me sad. I wait with the boy until I'm sure he hasn't hurt himself or worse been bitten by this bloated monster. The heat goes back to normal over time. The room responding to the will of the occupant.

When I'm sure all is well I leave him to clean up the mess and take the beast out to the backyard intending to release it into the woods where it can play with the other things that skitter and jump stalk and bit that dwell therein.

Walking back to the house I find more of my children playing in the yard. The newest and yet oldest of my poor lost children. Lyn and Kirby sit in the green summer grass. The rarest of finds in the omniverse a, Benjamin " Kirby " and Gwendolyn "Lyn" Tennyson that are as codependent as they are mutually sociopathic. It warms my heart to see cousins close as siblings. At 17 they are the oldest of my charges and the most recent I've taken in. As such I've had the least time to help them so sad. They are yet to feel at home in my crooked house. They insist on sleeping in the same room for instance.

Get your mind out of the gutter dears. They sleep in shifts, taking turns guarding the door as if It was not safe here in my home for any all within its walls. Even with all the safety, my yard can provide they sit back to back protecting one another. I hear them speaking as I approach. My hearing is sharper than most think in this armor.

" Lyn I know I feel it too, but if we go back pretty much everyone that used to be on our side is out to get us. Oh great its . . ."

She silenced him by squeezing his hand just a bit.

"Shh Kirby not with the armor on. "

He scoffs.

"We need a safe place I know that, but after Vilgax and Diagon you're afraid of Darth Vader over there?"

She uses that same strong clear voice Gwen's always do when talking sense.

"The Magics my thing REMEMBER? There is a power in names. Being so famous everyone and everything knows who you are. The flipside of that is true too. No one and nothing knows who you are. At the very least you get a hell of a cheap shot before whoever you throw down with."

Kirby sounds defeated, sick, and my heart breaks just a bit it truly does. This one will do anything to get back what he once had. That will destroy them both if I can't reach them. It is all or nothing with these two, I can respect even admire that.

I step closer at last.

"Hello, my dears, enjoying the sweet spring day in the yard? Careful mind you dear Zachary was making mischief and I had to return a terrible creepy crawly to the forest. Who knows if anything followed me back."

I'm jesting of course. Nothing in those woods no matter how terrible would follow ME home.

Lyn smiles and I can tell it's a well-practiced smile. That face used to be the idol of millions after all.

"We'll keep that in mind Prime. Kirby and I just needed some fresh air, and sunlight that's all."

Kirby is silent, it's never a good thing when a Ben is silent no matter what they call themselves.

"I leave you both to the sun and a moment of peace then. Rest young ones here in our happy home."

Those were the wrong words to say to the wrong children at the wrong moment in their lives. I know even as I speak them. This armor exacts a heavy toll my dears.

They are silent as I walk back inside and I know their story is not going to be a pleasant one if I can't reach them.

I am a monster I know this but I am not the kind of monster that harms or abandons children. I know that monster well and have paid the highest of prices to walk in eternity unseen in his shadow.

At long last, I reach my own chambers. My own private space in these limitless halls. The cape falls to the floor and I stand on the armor maintenance station. Redundant power systems begin to drain, and internal drives spin down. Smart cored vacuum tubes and organic microchips go silent. I am integrated into current time\space and at long last can think clearly without pain. The flexible alloy in the armor opens and I step naked into one moment in time again.

I step to Tatiana's mirror as my personal perspective readjusts to existing in just one moment in time. Just to remember who I am and what I'm supposed to be I look myself over.

Dishwater blond hair I got from dear mother. Green eyes like my brother. We get them from our feisty grandmother yes we do. A scar with ugly stitch marks over my heart from the day the monster came for me.

I'm done for now my dears. Next time I think I'll spend some time by the fire and tell a few stores. Come back next time to hear tales from the lives of my lost children here in my crooked house and how they came to be here.

Next: "Fallen Heros"


	2. Chapter 2

The Eon Prime Chronicles

Chapter 2 "Fallen Heros"

Greetings my dears and welcome back to my crooked house in this most crooked of realms. Don't worry my children I've left my armor hanging on the wall and as such I'm a little more personable tonight.

As I sit by the fire and listen to a great quacking sound of something horrid stomping back and forth outside in the darkness of my front yard. Whatever it is, sounds angry and from time to time the most dreadful of moans can be heard over the wind and snows. I know there is nothing to fear from anything outside these walls but are a bit unsettled. Not any of those that have been here very long mind you all of them know just how safe they are.

Lyn and Kirby are new, however. The pair are taking turns pacing about and fretting over something going bump in the night a bit louder than most.

While they are fretting I'll be by the fire and tell a story or two I think to pass the time. Considering the circumstances I know just the story I'll tell. The one about how those two lost children came to seek safety in my home is fitting I think.

I'll skip the basics we all know about alien devices full of secrets falling into the hands of the unlikeliest child imaginable. No point really in retreading that ground. Let me instead say Not every Max Tennyson in the Omniverse was a hero who passed a legacy of adventure to his grandchildren. In some worlds, Max Tennyson was just another corrupt Policeman that instead passed on a legacy of secrets and lies.

I entered the world between two ticks of the clock. Knowing time to be a window, hoping other things could just maybe become a door.

I looked down on the massive energy barrier over Mount Rushmore being bombarded by mystic rock creatures, 21st-century mortar fire and one massive suit of powered armor. Captain Nemesis's voice bellowed over a loudspeaker while marking certain sections of the field with a laser targeting system. His voice was tried like an old lion forced to roar one last time.

"You are not getting away this time Tennyson! The world knows what you are! Pierce had proof you sold your own teammate to a Techadon! Proof you traded Galvan technology to that Vilgax monster! You killed that boy to cover it! The world knows it, Tennyson and you can't hide!"

The section he targeted suffered a bombardment from artillery two miles away. Military hardware that dominated the better part of a century joined mystic blasts and high gain plasma bolts from the armors own hands. Slowly the shield was failing under the onslaught, slowly.

I watched from just outside time as the "heroes" close in on the great " villains " of the age.

Flocks of scritans circled overhead firing mystic energy at the barrier but in the end, broken rock rained down to earth almost as fast as the Mount Rushmore defense grid could destroy them. Each individual uncaring of its fate just flew out of another portal its great eye firing at the energy shield only to be destroyed a moment later.

The bodies of the fallen litter the field. The armored titan Captain Nemesis's once good looks replaced with a hunted vista of a man that could never forgive himself. The building-sized mecha knelt opened and began to detach from the smaller armored suit that made the captain famous. The haunted looked man stepped out onto burned earth. Charmcaster walked beside him her flesh stitched together like like a doll repaired by an uncaring hand. She spoke before the Captain did.

"Why are you stopping? We lose options at dawn without the stars to draw on! Feeling nostalgic for the little monsters you made? "

Targeting computers in the armor want to lock on but he overrides them. He knew what he wanted to accomplish in the time remaining to him. The Captain speaks up his voice tired and full of guilt.

"We have all the time in the world. Since that video went viral and I gave the FBI the location of that Wheels kids remains, the world has turned those little monsters. I thought I'd found my in with next generation when they came to be with the Highbreed. Keep me relevant with the kids. You're right though I funded them, I made them household names and I **WILL** NOT LET THEM GET AWAY BY RUSHING THINGS."

Charmcaster bore cracked teeth in a snarl.

"No moon or starlight means the dimensional ward I have on the area is weaker, "captain". Lyn Tennyson is a backwater savage but she isn't stupid. The ward won't stop more that one portal at a time without the extra power. They get clever, use a null void projector and they are OUT. "

The captain hung his head his heart heavy with choices made and futures not nearly as bright as expected.

"Not this again, please. Words in from the extranet, the fleet from Galvan B broke the stalemate over the Highbreed homeworld. Vilgax refused to be taken and blew the Chimerian Hammer's warp core. The war these little monsters started is over and a task force is coming for the Ultimatrix if nothing else. Let them run to the Null Void, they have no friends there anymore."

Charmcaster spoke with a smile knowing her words would make his blood run cold.

"My master is getting impatient Nesmith."

The captain snapped.

"NOT NOW DAMMIT! We are so close! We can end this if we just hold it together a little longer. We owe the fallen that much. Charmcaster we ARE winning RIGHT NOW. We do something foolish and that all goes AWAY! What will Diagon think of that?"

For a long minute, there was no more sound but the buzzing of his armors power core a few feet away. Charmcaster spoke as she turned to leave.

"No sense in the living and the living dead turning on each other I suppose. Once this is done we can all rest peacefully in our graves."

Then she turned to leave and Captain Nemesis spoke to himself.

"I plan to live through this."

I knew he wouldn't.

**

Inside the mountain, the "villains" watch there world come crumbling down while sitting at a largely empty roundtable. At its center, a faded logo for "hero generation" once the most popular show in the world. Cooper's voice wasn't full of fear per say but it was close. Behind him, a bank of monitors from the 90s played a mix of news shows.

"We've got a few hours tops. The shield is tough but it's 30 years old and hasn't been maintained since the year I was born. We lose one breaker and no way the backups hold for long enough for me to change out parts. We NEED an exit plan."

Cooper sat down breathing hard his overweight frame making the chair Creek. Eunice sat in a blur not following the conversation her mind struggling with "aftermarket modifications". Oblivious to the dire situation she grabbed the remote and changed the channel. The room went silent as an episode of a now-canceled reality show began to play.

Everyone winced at the uncomfortable reminder of better days.

Cooper sounded exhausted as he spoke again.

"You need to let me take a look at her."

I circled the table. Those sitting at it stuck between heartbeats. I glanced at Cooper, hardly giving him a thought I mutter to myself.

"Weak, and blind."

I circled the table to Gwendolyn and then looked over my shoulder at the TV screen. The girl at the table seemed to be almost trying to escape the girl on the screen. The long red hair was cut short and frosted purple. A star-shaped tattoo on her right cheek glowed a faint yellow in time with the crystal choker around her neck. Lastly, a shiny "Lyn Tennyson - Hero Generation" pin on her yellow leather jacket reminded everyone America's sweetheart was playing the rebel now.

I muttered to myself as I go.

"You got tired of the illusion you sold the world. Now you're desperate to change it, or you were until the house of cards came down."

Walking past Eunice I hardly glanced at her at all peaking only at the back of her neck.

"Archetype is damaged, probably because it's been altered to keep it compliant. Grisly, but who cares."

I came at last to the fallen hero. The table was round but even now no one doubted who was sitting at the head.

Were his cousin was trying to escape being America's sweetheart, he was desperate to get back to being the golden boy. His hair was perfect, the custom green jacket had to be new and the Ultimatrix was on his arm. The collection of other gadgets either strapped to his back, around his neck or on a belt just looked out of place. The jackets " Kirby - Hero Generation" logo seemed out of place with the grim scene.

I stopped and smiled under my helmet, knowing where this was all going.

"You crawled your way into the limelight with your own cunning, but you believed your own hype and something shattered the illusion. I feel your pain, really I do."

I knelt down and looked closely at the Ultimatrix on his wrist.

"Matrix core is intact, but the codon stream has s been cut back to a trickle. This knockoff can't function in standalone mode. However, there is just enough in the capacitor for one change every hour or so. So Primus is damaged maybe? If it was Azmuth he'd just cut it off totally. Maybe that war you started spread far indeed. The rest of this menagerie looks like he's trying to compensate. Still, the Ruby Ray of Ulo is no small prize."

A tap on the console on my arm restarted the clock, but to everyone seated I continued to not be there.

Kirby spoke calm and clear.

"The last time I let you look at a Matrix core you triggered one of the fail-safes. Let me worry about Eunice, Cooper. You are right though, we need an out. Any movement on the door to anywhere?"

Lyn spoke ignoring Eunice.

"Sorry boys, nothing at all. Charmcaster is good but not that good. Adwaita has to be blocking me himself. As far as turtle man is concerned we have nothing to talk about."

Kirby shook his head and joked.

"Give the guy Hex you'd think he'd be up for Charmcaster. Shame she's not as pretty as she used to be, huh?"

Lyn smiled, Cooper didn't. The blonde boy looked at been with narrow eyes.

"Kirby, that's not something to joke about. Half the mess outside is because Captain Nemesis literally dug her out of a shallow grave. If that didn't happen we wouldn't be in this mess! How'd she die again?"

Kirby didn't raise his voice he just looked over at Lyn as he spoke softly.

"The witch got jealous that's all. Lyn was the one with the singing contract, I had a movie deal, you did commercials for Apple. She had a website with no traffic, and that community college she bought in Jersey full of people that dye their hair white while failing to learn magic. Her idea for magic revival on earth came up short."

Lyn stood and walked to Cooper's side and put her hand on his shoulder.

"Coop it's not the time to dig up old lies again. We need to worry about the next few hours."

He looked at her with big worried eyes.

"Three months ago everyone loved you, Lyn, now there are bets on your jail sentence in Vegas. That video came from Pierce's phone, I built all our phones by hand. It looks legit. I don't like where this is going."

She just made eye contact with him and spoke. Nothing more, no magic at all.

"Cooper, love, we've been over is powerful, and we beat him before. Charmcaster gave him an opening to get back at us. He made enough people believe in a fake video to get the rest wondering. It's that simple. We need time to work this out. Either to find Pierce or to prove how Charmcaster got his phone with that video. Why don't you go keep an eye on the shield and I'll come to see you in a minute."

He got up to leave and Kirby just looked at her. He didn't even really wait for Cooper to be that far up the hallway before talking.

"That kid will believe anything you tell him. It's kind of impressive, and sad at the same time."

Lyn put a hand on her hip and smiled a wicked smile.

"America's sweetheart Kirby, the literal dream of every loser out there."

Kirby chuckled a tired chuckle.

"Ha, that's the truth. I'm sorry you got stuck with Cooper so long. You could have been with whoever you wanted if I hadn't brought up getting him as a replacement tech monkey for Elena."

She just shrugged.

"Not like it kept me from dating. Cooper never leaves the base and just believes me when I tell him me and whoever I'm spending time with are just making a commercial together or something."

Kirby stood up and walked over to his cousin. Slowly as if afraid to do it wrong somehow he hugged her.

"You need to go. When the shield goes down just go. You get far enough away from here and you'll be able to manage a teleport if it's just you."

She returned the hug just as aquardly.

"No way doofus, it's been us against the world since we were ten remember? We killed the old man, and haven't let anyone lay a hand on use ever since."

Kirby pulled back and looked her in the eye. He sounded so sad and unused to remorse.

"I did this, as in me, not you. Charmcaster came after ME because the watch is giving out and I'm the weak link now. Pierce was so close he got that video with his stupid phone. I did not even think to look when I rolled their bodies into that ditch and buried them. I'm sorry Lynnie we had it all and now it's gone."

She just smiled again, but this time it was the fake smile she used for the cameras. Sad she was trying to make him feel better.

"Hey, none of that. We are in it to win it remember? Even if we can't, we go down as if we could. I wind up Cooper one last time, get him to overclock the defenses with his powers. It won't last but we try to break out."

Kirby turned away and snarled.

"No way that buys enough time to even find Charmcaster. Captain Nemesis'll find me. If we stick together, we could maybe take out one of them. No way we could get both of them. With the watch working, I could take out both of them myself."

She sounded so sad when she spoke, Kirby gritted his teeth.

" It is enough time if we leave Cooper, Eunice and …Ship to keep them busy. We run, just run. We'll find a way off world sooner or later."

Kirby Growled.

"You want me to leave my dog and girlfriend to get killed?"

Lyn really did look sad now.

"The Unitrix is a machine, you traded Elena to Techadon SO they'd give you that hacking tool to make sure she'd be totally LOYAL. Yes,a she's glitchy as hell, but she IS loyal. We need that loyalty now like we need Cooper being a lovesick puppy."

She looked at the ground and sounded a little ashamed. These two really only have any compassion for each other. It is Heartwarming really isn't, dears?

"OK bad choice of words but you get my idea. We can't hold anything back, not THIS TIME. For crying out loud Kirby she's sitting over there watching our old show. She can hear us."

Kirb looked grim as he walked over to Eunice still watching TV.

"Yea your right, like usual. Ship's a good dog, but we are all dead if this ends there way."

He touched two circles on the back of Eunice's neck and she vanished without a word. The Unitrix itself fell on the floor and rolled under the table. Lyn forced a smile and turned to leave.

"Good. You get your toys ready, and I'll go motivate my fat 'boyfriend'. Whatever happens, happens."

She left and Kirby fished under the table for the unitrix. While he did I pondered a Ben and Gwen Tennyson that where about as far from the prime reality as one could get.

"Criminal degenerates, but still bonded. Loving family even. More grief over "The dog" than using and discard the people around them."

Kirby picked up the Unitrix and pulled a black rectangular tool from a container on his belt. The boy hesitated for a moment.

"If I could change more often, one of the smart aliens would fix you right up, but I can't wait an hour for my next transformation. Sorry girl, you were something, but I need muscle."

Plugging the techadon tool into the Unitrix Kirby began his work before going out to meet his fate. He erased Eunice's mind without another thought and preloaded her power set to a silverback gorilla. She spoke in her same feminine voice but without an ounce of emotion or humanity.

"Techadon combat droid OS 10.0.17763 loaded on non-standard hardware. Note any warranty you may have is now voided. Please, set the requested mode of operation."

Kirby rolled his eyes.

"If we get out of this I am never going to get you back, not now. Maybe I can get a hot brunette. Set mode to the bodyguard. Lyn and Kirby Tennyson. Set Lyn to priority one. If you have to pick who to help, and who to leave, you are to pick her understand?"

Eunice beautiful face twitched unemotionally as the foreign program trying to make sense of a body it was never designed for.

"Bodyguard mode enabled. Priority one protectee Lyn Tennyson, priority two Kirby Tennyson."

Kirby nodded and walked off to find his "dog". I decide to take a chance at missing part of what's coming to take a moment to check on something dear Kirby said. It's a risk, I may walk in eternity, but not as well as some, my children.

Stepping back in time better than half a decade. I check the usual turning points in a very special summer of adventure. Finding the one I'm looking for in one of the usual places. It's near to the middle of summer, and dear grandfathers birthday. Most sets of Tennyson cousins get a valuable look at their futures at this point. Come to think of it the same was true for Lyn and Kirby too.

Grandfather had been gone for hours but like good caring grandchildren grateful for a summer of adventure they had prepared a party with CAKE! Such good grandchildren, or maybe just warry. Then Grandfather returned long past dark. Kirby was asleep at the dinner table having walked into town to bring back cake. Lyn was awake the poor girl when Grandfather returned smelling of whiskey and cigars. He stumbled into the rustbucket more than walked. A black eye promised a bad attitude. Lyn coddled her magic book and shivered while filling with an odd bracelet locked on her wrist. For a moment I wondered how soundly Kirby would be sleeping if he wasn't exhausted. The old man spoke with a raspy voice.

"Stupid redneck and his crooked dogfighting operation. They stole my money!"

His eyes caught Lyn's and she fiddled with the bracelet clutching the book to her chest. He spoke again his voice calm and only a little raspy like a used car salesman.

"Hello, sweetheart. Sorry, I'm coming home so late Verdona err Gwen. You and Ben hahaha Ben and Gwen Ben and Gwen. You two look like you put a party together. Good kids the pair of you. How would you like to get off being grounded early? "

The look on that girls face when dear grandfather kept rhyming their names I think I get why they go by Lyn and Kirby. The girl holds the bracelet close to her and the fear in her eyes stills. Those are the eyes of a child old beyond her years. She speaks and I hear a faint echo of that fire I know is in her.

"What do you want me to do? Rob someone? HURT someone?"

The fake smile got a little dimer on the old man as he stepped closer to her.

"Now Gwendolyn you know grandpa stops bad people. You WANT to help me get bad people, don't you? I'll take your bracelet off and you can have your powers back so you can help again. Some bad people at a dog fighting ring took all of Grandpa's money. Now that makes me think maybe dog fighting is bad, and if we took their dogs away that would be a good thing. So you'll just slip in under a fence I'll show you, and you can burn the place down."

I missed Ben waking somewhere along the way I know now, but he must have been watching. I wonder if he saw Gwen press her lips together and decide to not be afraid.

"You want me to burn someplace down? Kill a bunch of dogs NO! That's sick Grandpa!"

The old grabbed her by her favorite blue shirt and the bracelet glowed as she tried to call power on a level she was years away from understanding. The old man let the mask drop.

"Little bitch, your father was too much of a pussy to beat the freak out of you like I did with him!"

The someone decided to be a hero, the poor idiot. Kirby's voice filled the rustbucket.

"PUT HER DOWN GRANDPA!"

The old man dropped her without a second thought and moved to the boy with anger in his eyes. Kirby had the Omitrix core popped out. He had been ready to change when he spoke and slammed the core down as his grandfather drew near. Diamondhead didn't look afraid, but Ben did when Max touched the Omnitrix symbol on his chest and he reverted back to his human form. Kirby tried to be brave.

"You're just a bully grandpa."

Max carefully wrapped one big hand around the Omnitrix, and began beating the boy with the other.

"Ungrateful little BRATS!"

I'll admit my dears that though I walk in eternity I have yet to learn to dance my way across it like some (oh let us call them) people. Maybe that's why even I am unable to tell you where that little girl was hiding that knife, or how she got to it so fast. What I can tell you, is that she went for her grandfather's neck on the same side as the hand Max had gripped on the Omnitrix. If he let go to defend himself Kirby would be free to change. Such a smart girl.

The knife found his carotid artery, and he half stumbled half fell out of the motorhome. Then it was over. The two children found each other in the dark and hugged in silence. It was adorable, and horrific all at the same time.

I'd like to see the whole of their trip in order to see more of what made them who they are, but I'm losing my tether on the moment I left and have to hurry back.

I watch Lyn readying for what she knows is her final battle. Did she speak to Cooper and make him believe they could win this? Did she whisper magic words into his ear? Sadly I missed that part and bending time anymore around now will attract attention.

What I did return in time to catch was the girl packing her bag. Actually, I should say repacking her bag. It had been ready to go and it looks like she's just rechecking for peace of mind.

A girl at the top of the world with wealth, fame and power at her disposal had a bug out bag ready to for how long? I can respect a little healthy paranoia, but still poor girls probably never had any stability what so ever.

Then I see what's in the bag, or some of it at least. What can I say she knows how to accessorize. She has two charms of Bezel at least, a plumbers badge, a Grimorum Arcanorum, a mask of Au punch, ten thousand dollars and a credit cube that looks old but it's silver.

I'm starting to wonder if Kirby's collection of gadgets was originally his own set of emergency supplies.

Lyn put the bag securely on her back and walked out past the room Cooper was preparing in without even stopping to say goodbye. As she did she tapped an earbud with one hand.

"Kirby, I'm dressed for a party. Are you driving or walking? Oh really now, that will be interesting."

I stand on President Washington's nose and look down on a battlefield. Piles of dead rock creatures cover the ground like gravel. It's enough to make you forget they are not constructs.

Charmcaster and Lyn are lighting up the preDawn sky as Nemesis and Kirby made the ground shake.

An evolved Vaxasaurian sent a barrage of bio-organic mini-missles into the left kneecap of Captain Nemesis building sized mecha. The armor held but only just. Kirby roared.

"You can't win this old man! Just let me and Lyn walk, tell the world whatever you want. My cousin and me we just leave earth and you never see us again."

The loudspeakers on the mecha answered as a fist the size of a car came down on Kirby driving him into the earth.

"You arrogant little punk! You use ME to get everything you ever wanted, selling out the galaxy along the way, and you want to walk away?!"

An evolved Necrofriggian floated intangibly up the mechas arm leaving it frozen in a quarter ton of ice within a few degrees of absultue zero halfway to its shoulder. Kirby spoke in ghosty tones.

"I do Carl because it gives you everything you want. You get to be the hero, you get your company back, and you get to tell the universe you killed us. Earth is safe, you get to be the hero again."

The Ultimatrix timed out, and Kirby landed on the scorched earth. The 40-year-old Mark 1 plumber suit he was wearing filtering out a sea of dust and smoke.

Nemesis screamed into the loudspeaker as the mecha struggled to free itself.

"You're done now, BOY!"

Kirby pulled the Sword of Ek Chuaj, in its time the weapon of a being like unto a god. Now a faded ember of power faded, but still a potent thing. The boy ran TOWARD the mecha to his credit. As he passed the pinned war machines already weakened left leg. He whispered as he did.

"Polaris strike."

The blade of the old god roared to life and for a moment it flared like days long past. It cut through the armor at the knee joint and send a colum of light out into brightening sky. The mecha fell one arm trapped one leg gone it was crippled in a kneeling position. The Sword went dark, its power faded for the moment at least. Kirby cursed.

"Dammit! Every time I cut loose with this thing it dies on me!"

The mecha didn't so much open as the chest-plate exploded outwards Nemesis sending a barrage of laser fire and insults at Kirby.

"Performance issues son? If you'd consulted your elders they could have helped!"

Kirby brought his left hand up to fire the Ruby ray of Ulo, and he missed by a mile.

Nemesis slammed into Kirby's chest doing close to 30 miles an hour. He then grabbed the boy by the front of his plumbers suit and dragged him along the ground for close to a mile digging a ditch as they went.

He stood over Kirby as the boy's faceplate opened on its own. Kirby spoke through labored breaths as the Captain looked down on him with blasters charged and glowing.

"Come on old man, you lose your nerve?"

The Captain took a deep breath, stilled himself and spoke. As he did I admit I hold mine.

"Benjamin Kirby Tennyson, by the authority of the UN security council, under the provisions of the Galactic Code of Conduct you are bound by law. You will be remanded to Coda Coda for trial. If there's anything left of the place that is. I look forward to seeing you sent to the Null Void you little punk."

Kirby, I swear started to cry.

"Damn you old man. The alien tech we brought you made $1.5 billion the last two years, the show and the merchandies was just cake on top of that. Wasn't that enough?"

Nemesis didn't flinch.

"You killed them, Kirby, you killed the better part of MY team to cover your selves. How could you do that boy?"

Kirby closed his eyes as he spoke, like me he knew what was coming. Still, he sounded like he was a heartbeat from sobbing.

"How many punks would have gotten a slap on the wrist but ended up in jail for years because "CAPTAIN NEMESIS" made them look like monsters after you bought them in? How many people did you kill from your board room while running YOUR company CARL? If you'd just done what I told you to earth would move out into space with knock-off alien junk from OUR company. Don't blame the game just because you lost."

Nemesis lowered his weapon.

"I didn't loose son, you did."

Kirby spoke clearly having swallowed his emotions.

"Ship, now boy!"

The ship emerged from the light of the rising sun and began to merge with Nemeisis armor. The armor itself convulsed and spit out electric shocks and hybrid alien technology began rejecting the takeover violently. Captain Nemesis trapped inside screamed.

"You little MONSTER I TRY TO TAKE YOU IN ALIVE AND YOU PULL THIS? IT WON'T WORK KIRBY I KNEW ALL ABOUT YOUR ATTACK DOG! WHEN I GET CONTROL BACK, YOU ARE DEAD!"

Kirby forced himself to a sitting position and level the Ruby Ray of Ulo once again. This time at a relatively stationary target.

"I am so sorry Ship, I am so sorry boy."

The creature offered a reply as Kirby fired. I will never know what it intended to say.

"Ship _pppp_."

The ray caught Nemesis in the stomach and burned clear through to the other side.

Ship turned to dust, and Captain Nemesis fell to the scorched earth.

Nesmith trapped in his armor tried to keep going. His legs didn't move.

"Armor computer status? Emergency reboot? Com systems Weapons? Work **DAMMIT!**

Lyn Tennyson burned a bright yellow in her energy form as she descended from the sky like an angel or a demon depending on your perspective. If only I had not bent time so far maybe I could have seen Lyn's side of the fight. Oh well, my dears unlike some "people" I know I don't pretend to be God.

The girl's voice was full of fear and concern.

"Kirby?! Oh no no no!"

She knelt beside him and turned back to her human form. Her pretty face looked like it had been slammed into concrete a few times, and maybe it had. She lay Kirby down a gently as she could and waved her plumbers badge over her cousin. Kirby spoke as she worked he was crying now.

"I killed him Lynnie, I had to kill my dog to get the old man."

Lyn spoke softly and calmly trying to not hurt him anymore.

"Your suit took most of it, good. I can get the rest. Things are worse than we thought Kirby. Cooper went silent ten minutes ago. Someone got into the base as soon as the shield failed. There's another player here."

She placed a heavily cracked Charm of Bezel of Kirby's forehead as Nemesis hacked up blood.

"Another player? Who do you think I sold things to all these years? Here is a hint, YO JOE you little monsters."

The charm flickered to life for ten full seconds before it sputtered and died for good. Kirby sat up slowly as Lyn smiled.

"Good, it had just enough left in it. We need to go."

Kirby stood on uneasy legs.

"They sent the joes? That means we are not getting far, and if they have Cooper they have the old mark one Null void projector in storage. We can't escape through the null void either. Lyn do you have enough left in the tank for a portal or a teleport?"

Lyn shook her head.

"Without help no way. I could maybe do someplace easy to get into. Dimension 12 maybe?"

Nemesis sounded in agony, but he was defiant.

"You're NOT getting away either of you."

Kirby looked down at the man, and back up to Lyn

"What if we could get one big flash of magic could that do it?"

She looked down at the crippled man and back up at her cousin she turned just a bit paler.

"Yea that will work, but we have to be quick."

Kirby knelt at Carl Nesmith's side. The man spoke in confusion.

"What are you two up to?"

The sword of Ek Chuaj flickered back to life in Kirby's hand. I know why they clearly don't.

Kirby brought the blade down across the man's neck cutting through what's left of the armor like it wasn't even there. Lyn Tennyson transformed into her yellow energy state the star-shaped tattoo on her face pulsing in time with the crystal star on her neck. She captured the escaping essence of the fallen hero burning it for fuel it in the act of working the spell.

With that, it was over. The rest is simple enough for you to guess without me holding your hands. They faced that broken realm bravely until they found there the way to my crooked house and the safety if offers. Being a good host I gave them all the aid I could. Then took a walk back in time in order to learn their tale that I might know just who is guest in my home.

Story enough for now I think. Good night dears, and sleep tight.

Next "A Saturday Lost "

Notes

Thanks goe out to my beta reader DrWhoFan13 for translating my words into something much easier to read.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3 "A Saturday Lost"

Greetings my dears and welcome back. Though I am unsure how welcoming I can be for there is trouble in my crooked house this night. It seems while I stood guard by the fire telling tales one of the children fell Ill while playing marry games with one of the others.

Get your minds out of the gutter I'm talking about the 11 years olds my dears.

Gwendolyn lay there in her bed with Zak holding her hand. Lyn and Kirby exchanged dire looks as I stand over the girl.

"Not one ounce of Mana in the girl not any longer that is. Dear Zachary, what were you two up to?"

The boy looked up at me with ancient eyes and spoke like a showman from golden age Hollywood.

"Why great Eon Prime? The reason anyone questions a dragon! To learn secrets lost to the ages of course. This girl wanted to know how to defeat an ageless predator at its own game of course! I fear she found the thing inside her at last and consumed it. What can I say you are what you eat and that creature within her was hardly what I'd call alive."

Then for just a moment unimaginably thin, he's a boy again.

"You can help her right?"

I try to sound maternal. I'll never have children of my own not now but I try to be there for my young ones truly.

"I certainly intend to try young Saturday. Lyn, Kirby, I'm going to need a favor from each of you. Feed her Mana but just in tiny amounts no more like feeding a baby bird with an eye dropper. Then I'll need ghostfreak."

Kirby and Lyn just exchanged wordless nods and went to work. She knelt by the bed, took the hand of the girl so very much like her but so very different and closed her eyes. The star-shaped tattoo on her face twinkled in time with the crystal on her neck.

Kirby spoke.

"Anyone that doesn't need to be here should maybe go out in the hall this is going to be hard to look at."

None of us moved but it's kind he warned us.

In a flash and a whisper, Kirby was gone.

"Ghostfreak."

We should have listened the things head was upside down and it was all claws and tentacles. Anyway, the mouth opened and a tentacle reached out touching Gwendolyn's cheek.

"Nothing. She is cut off from the ghostfreak hivemind totally. Removed from that ectoplasmic web she has no way of storing or processing life energy."

I frowned knowing how bad this is.

"Can you manipulate her like a ghostfreak minion, and grow webbing of your own?"

The thing that is also Kirby turned its head right side up I think to try to disgust me less. It failed.

"I suppose but I will not be able to bond her to me the link will just dissolve when I time out."

One day dear Kirby will learn it's not all about him.

"That's fine Kirby. I need internal webbing that can support a power source. Then, Zak, you'll need to run an errand for me."

He looked up at me with that desperate hope in his eyes only a child can have. Gwendolyn's been good for this boy I can tell. If only she'd done as well with William.

"What do you need me to do?"

I smiled I can't help it.

"There are Phantoms in Amity park only partly human. One of them was a deeply flawed clone and needed medicine to stabilize her. If Gwendolyn is like anything on earth it's her. Find more of whatever they gave her and bring it back. It should be at Fenton Works."

Turning to leave I speak to Zak as I do.

"You're on your own for a ride my boy. Be careful near those Phantoms, there is time walker that watches over them. He is very possibly the most powerful among us and it will be all I can do to hide you from him."

I'll never know what happened after the door closed behind us. I was too focused elsewhere to check. I'd imagine those two still being new to my home, and not yet feeling like a member of "the family" as it were had a dreadful idea. One or both of those lost young people saw an opening to grab power and the security that comes with it.

"Ultimate ghostfreak."

"Kirby, what are you doing?"

In my armor and again walking in eternity once more. I watch young Zak walk out the back door his claw artifact in hand. He remembers to close the door like a good boy. Then he walks out into a forest the brothers Grimm would have a field day writing about.

Ten minutes in and he can see nothing but something can see him. It seems that thing that caused all that ruckus the other night has caught his scent. If the boy cares he doesn't show it. He's in truth using his powers to clear a path through the other unkind things that dwell there. Giant spiders wolves and other things. Darker things that walk like men when they have a mind too. Whatever is following him I can see clearly, but none of the nasties out there bothered it either.

By the time he reached the Forest door atop the old burial mound, it was on him. Coming up behind him like a wolf in the night. Zak fell into a forward roll as Tsul 'Kalu the ancient Cherokee spirit of the hunt smashed his stone ax down on the spot the boy had just been standing. Zak was on his feet and facing the man-beast.

What the boy couldn't see through the haze of dirt kicked up by the blow I could see clear as day. The left side of the creatures face was gone only bone and an empty eye socket remained. This twisted realm has made this creatures immortal existence into a curse sad really.

"Greetings and Bienvenu ancient Hunter. I am pressed for time shall we simply part ways in peace I have no quarrel with you today."

The fog of debris parted as the greatest hunter of story and legend walked clearly into view. I was far too wary who might be watching to help, even hear. Poor boy, I hope I don't need to send someone else in his place I've rather gotten used to him.

The beast let out a sound halfway between a roar and a Cherokee battle cry. The blood of everything in earshot myself included went cold. Zaks' eyes flashed with an ancient power that scoffed at inconsequential things like time. A tiny sliver inside that boy really is immortal in a way I don't think even that Paradox monster is.

Zak raised the claw to a ready position like a swordsman.

"Last warning I don't have time for you today."

It changed him Zak just sidestepped him and smacked him in the rear with the claw.

"Too slow, and I've spent too long in Weird World to be any nicer I'm sorry."

The think uprooted a tree older than any or all of my children and tossed the mighty oak at the boy like it was nothing.

Zak dropped flat against the ground and it sailed right over him. When he rolled to one side to get up the ancient thing not entirely human or cryptid was looming over him. Zak just smirked.

"Fulminus venite!"

Black lightning fell from the broken sky and struck the hunter down. Zak stood and the dance of the immortals was over almost.

Zak sounded just like Argost and I was a little sad.

"The old lion looking for a good death hu? Tragic if it wasn't so pathetic. I live in a macabre manor house with a library instead of a TV. There are at least a few books of magic about. From time to time I even read one.

And here I thought he was reading those Potter novels I brought back from dimension 27 where Harry kills Ron to be with Harmony. He must have been trying to impress our little Gwen.

The boy then touched the claw to the corps and white light ran up the length of it, then up Zaks' arm and all that is or was Tsul 'Kalu was gone. Power passed from one immortal to another, and endless existence was absorbed into another. Some say KUR came to earth with his children long ago to battle her brother Diagon to claim his power thusly.

Yes, dears, having a Zak Saturday around gives me a back plan if the monster that took my heart returns one day. My main weapon is well let's save that for later, shall we?

The boy turned away and with a muttered word the portal at the open mound opened.

The city of Amity Park.

Eighteen months after the phantom "Planet incident".

I watch Danny Fenton creep into a dark room like he expected to find something horrific inside. He did depending on your perspective.

Danielle his underage clone was curled up under a blanket with a box of fudge in one hand and an old tablet pc in the other. She looked like she'd been there all week.

The boy tried to sound parental.

"Dani you've been up here all week. Put down the tablet and the fudge. It's just you and me while Mom and Dad are dropping off Jazz at college. You and I are making dinner."

The young girl looked up at him with fudge on the corner of her mouth.

"No thanks I have fudge and YouTube."

Danny Fenton did the unthinkable. He pulled out his cell phone and pressed a button on the screen. Danielle looked at the tablet in abject horror.

"No INTERNET?!"

She looked up at him with murder in her glowing green eyes.

"You MONSTER! Give it back!"

"Kiddo I'm sorry you got dumped, but it happens."

The girl curled her lips into a snarled and snapped.

"How would you know?! You've had exactly ONE girlfriend and your parents signed her Christmas card "Happy Holidays to our future daughter in law"!"

Danny shrugged and two ghostly clones of himself picked the girl up by her arms and floated her down the hallway. She moaned as only a 13-year-old can.

"I haaate you, Danny."

Getting to the kitchen Danny tossed a bag of frozen food to her.

"Ok, this has broccoli in it so it's got to be healthier then what you've been living on. After we eat we are going to …."

Danny got cut off by the doorbell.

"I'll be right back, find a clean pot with a lid please."

Danielle tossed the bag of frozen food over her shoulder and followed Danny silently.

Zak sat on the steps outside Fenton Works and tried to make the aching feeling from the fight with Tsul 'Kalu seem worse then they were. He remembered I think this place from his own world a list of Secret Scientists his parents told him were trustable. It's a long shot, but it is not like TIME is on our side.

Ironic really, being a time traveler always seemed to be like being a wizard in a fairytale. Wizards in fairy tales have no rules, like the real wizards I've met my fellow time travelers just play by a different set of rules than most. The rules, however, are definitely there, just unseen by those that don't walk in eternity.

What's that? No dears I'm not a wizard, I've just worked closely with one or two for a long while.

Danny opened the door and I was powerless to do anything but try to block out the vision of an old ghost I know for a fact is more powerful than that monster Professor Paradox that took so much from me. He saw Zak looking like he just got into a fight, and he had. Danielle peeks over Danny's shoulder and jumped threw the boy, to catch Zak as he fell.

Zak looked up at her and I have to admit put on one hell of a show. He leaned on her heavily, guessing she was stronger than she looked.

"Greetings and Bienvenue lovely Phantom. I could use a hand if you don't mind?"

Danielle half panicked.

"Oh NO CALL A DOCTOR AND A SURGEON CALL A DOCTOR WHO IS ALSO A SURGEON!"

Danny rolled his eyes.

"Dani you really are 13 and 2 all at the same time. Get him downstairs, I'll get the first aid kit and meet you there."

The pair limped off and oh no. Work fast my little Saturday. Danny took out his cell phone and dialed a number.

"Aunt Drew its Danny. Hay I know Zak needed to reschedule his play date with Danielle because you guys had that sewer monster thing to deal with. Thing is Zak just showed up ALONE at our place looking like he'd just been in a fight. It doesn't look too bad so please don't worry. I'm going to take a look at him in a minute, please call me when you get this message."

Zak sat on an examination table across the room from the ghost portal. I can feel the power in that portal even here between two ticks of the clock. Power enough to change the world in the hands of marginalized lunatics on the fringe. Such a waste.

The young girl neither entirely human or ghost fretted over him in a way only one with a first crush can.

"Ohh M Gee You look like you got into a fight with a bear! Was it a cryptid bear? Did it hurt you? Is it still around I'll smack him around!"

The boy's act I admit was a bit forced but it worked because she was after all young and hadn't done this dance before.

"I know you would. You tough girl I kinda like that."

Dani I may have to go looking for a version of you at some point. The way she blushed when he gave that lame line was just too much. Shame none of us have the time for this. The older boy walked into the room with a first aid kit that was the size of a professional mechanics toolbox. He set it on the counter and turned to the pair. My heart, my poor heart skipped a beat as he spoke.

"I need to run a scan to check for head trauma. Why don't you uum you know go get cleaned up."

The girl raised an eyebrow and Zak gripped the claw tightly. Danny worked a nearby control panel cool as ice I have to admit.

"Kido you're wearing one left sock, a pair of dirty rainbow dash pajama bottoms and a t-shirt with half a candy bar worth of fudge."

The girl's face went flush with embarrassment, she turned invisible and ran from the room in childish shame.

"Oh M Gee I haven't had a shower in two days!"

Danny looked over at Zak gritting his teeth into a fake smile.

"That was a mean thing to do to someone man."

Danny walked over to Zak and put his hand on the claw. I've never seen him let anyone touch that thing, not even me. The older boy spoke.

"Mind if I put this over there? It's getting in the way of the scanner. I have to power down when I go through it."

He let it go, I have to admit it was the right call considering the circumstances. If only he'd known the poor boy. If only I could have helped.

Danny set the claw down on a table half a room away. Zak watched him open the tackle box-sized kit and his eyes narrowed on a bright green compartment with the ghost girls silhouette on it.

Danny spoke the clever boy. Damn him.

"So Sarah has gotten all broken up you too had your little fight or whatever. You didn't do something stupid like get beaten up to get her to forgive you did you, Zak?"

My poor boy tried I'll give him that.

"Sarah's a special girl and…."

Danny reached to his left and hit a large red button and Zak found himself inside a glowing square force field cutting off his response. To his credit, he didn't break character just yet.

"Umm Phantom?"

Danny powered up into his ghost form and the room flashed with rings of green ecto-energy. He held up his cellphone to Zak. There was a picture of a muck-covered Zak Saturday standing next to his mother. The boy was older, a bit taller, and dressed in some kind of hard armored suit.

I couldn't read the text clearly but it was in bright red letters.

Danny spoke his words full of dry sarcasm.

"Danielle is my cousin name actually. So you are Zak Monday hu? That's original let me tell you."

My Zak stopped acting his eyes glowed with an otherworldly fire.

"No just a rougher Saturday then most. I'm only going to say this once dear Phantom. I require medication for someone part ghosty just give it over and I'm gone. You will never lay eyes on me again sir."

Then ghost boy said the wrong thing. How very rude of him.

"Anyone ever tell you that you sound like that guy from that old show Weird world? V. V. Argost I think."

Zak lost his temper and four tiny newborn Lufferlang spiders descended from the ceiling of the lab. One of them landed right on Danny Phantom's face. The boy screamed an otherworldly scream that cut through the barrier between realms enough to make my ears ring. Zak raised his hand and the Claw floated from the table top and hit the off switch for the forcefield. Danny rolled on the ground ghostly cold bellowing from his mouth turning the lab into a winter wonderland. Zak picked up a nondescript cylinder from the first aid kit, and walked for the door claw in hand.

"Bonne soirée my dear Phantom. Do be careful Lufferlang spiders get ravenous in the cold."

Upstairs Danielle in the shower thought she might have heard something, but ignored it. She did after all need to look good for her boyfriend rather fast.

I put the needle into Gwendolyn's arm myself. Her pretty red hair turns white, and she slips into a peaceful slumber. In an hour or so Kirby tells me the webbing is holding and the needed ghostly bits are growing in nicely.

My guard goes down eventually and i remove my armor. If the ghost of time had noticed he'd have made his presence known by now I think if he was going to. My smile is a wide genuine thing that hasn't been so in longer than I can remember. I hug Lyn Kirby, and Zak all, then promise them a gift for keeping my littlest charge going. Zak sits up with Gwendolyn for the night. While the rest of us retire at last.

For once all is right with the world in my crooked house this night.

I never noticed Professor Paradox looking down on us all from overhead.

Next: "The girl that wasn't there."

Note: Thanks again to my beta reader drwhofan13.

Note number 2: Danielle living with the Fenton's was something that would have happened had the Danny Phantom show continued. Just consider Danny and company as having had another season or worth of adventures we didn't see between the end of the show and them appearing here.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4 "The girl that wasn't there"

Welcome back to my happy home and for once I really am happy dears. My littlest charge is sitting on my lap asleep against my chest. My poor tired old heart physically glows just a bit as she does. I whisper to my heart.

"Yes my love, she'd have been perfect for use all those long years ago. She'd have fit right in."

I know dear Gwendolyn's too old for this but I don't care. She almost died, and in a way she did die a bit. She's a Phantom now.

Her eyes open all black and red but no longer sad. Her voice is the same though. So is that cute stutter of hers.

"It's time, is it? Is it?"

I smile a real genuine smile.

"It is a child, go get dear Lyn and Kirby. Bring them to the workshop, by the time you get there I'll have wound up our machine king."

She smiles and floats off like Peter Pan. I stand, take a look at myself in that ancient mirror I keep. I prim just a bit, run a brush through my hair, and all those things a woman does when she wants to look pretty while not really looking like she wants to look pretty. Then I head off.

The endless halls of my home are so familiar to me walking them with my eyes closed is actually something I tried once. That month was interesting.

Passing the library I keep silent for even I make no noise in that place. The kitchen is always warm and welcoming, even if I regret that one time I ordered a "long pork sandwich" while I was a bit tipsy.

Reaching the workshop I take a deep breath then walk inside. It smells like oil and smoke in here. Here I find my mechanical man, going about his day well mechanically. His movements are all identical every step the same length of stride. Every glance a camera sweep, and my entrance just an object moving into a workspace.

Here I find Rex Machina, the king of the machines, or what's left of him. Like all the others I've given shelter here he's lost. Timelines like his are so very rare because of Professor Paradox. Other than myself he's the only one I've found that noticed what was being done and tried to save his world. Like everyone else to have ever stood their ground against that monster he too was struck down. He crawled here across the void and I brought him what he needed to save himself. We only partly succeeded. There is so little humanity left in him now I don't trust him around any of the others without my supervision. Even then I need to remind him how to be human for a little while. My heart skips a beat and I reassure it who the only one I've ever loved is. It goes silent a while, and I don't blame it.

Rex is tinkering with a clock when I touch him. He looks over at me with those big brown eyes of his and there is nothing in there. No spark of humanity I can see. My lips touch his and something inside him come to life. I feel the power of the meta nanite he holds in his heart pulse. If he had them all, Paradox wouldn't have stood a chance.

Get your mind out of the gutter you don't get to see what happens next. Let's just say if a pair of time travelers want to find an hour or so to themselves they can. In this dimension at least.

The children arrive and we've moved a work table to the center of the room. There are chairs for everyone, and Rex is almost human. He meets Kirby with a big smile and Lyn with a bigger one. My little ghost seems to have gone wandering. It's for the best I think. Rex is dangerous, and she's still too trusting despite everything she's been through.

"Hey there, Jenny tells me I'm your first Salazar. You are not my first set of Tennysons, but I gotta say Gwenny looked a lot better wearing the watch when I met my version of you two."

Between them mentioning my name, even with me not being in my armor, and the horrible pickup line Lyn's eyes flash yellow just a bit. The girl acted before I can stop her. I'm still exhausted from cloaking Zak and well other things. Her fake smile was flawless, and the way she walked over to him you'd think this was a movie set filing the love story of the year. Her voice was like silk as she touched Rex's chest.

"You have a nanotech control colony hosted in your heart. That so cool, you must be able to build anything just by thinking."

She actually fluttered her eyelashes before leaning in to whisper. Rex looked like he was in love.

"If you do anything with that watch I don't like, or if you call me 'Gwenny' again I'm going to kill you."

Kirby speaks up and Lyn ignores him.

"Lyn, we need these guys to help."

I speak and all three listen.

"Lyn, please we talked about this. Rex's brain is heavily reconstructed so please be nice. Second I told you my rules when you came to stay here. You don't harm or steal from anyone here or you deal with me, young lady."

Dear me, I just used the phrase "young lady". How have I gotten old? I am a time walker for Hypertime's sake.

Rex didn't stop smiling.

"Yeah, the last Gwen I met said she'd kill me too. I got no luck with redheads what can I tell ya. Grab a chair and let me see if Albedo is an arrogant ass in your world too."

Kirby and Lyn exchanged looks. He sat down, and she did too. I realize Kirby has that ruby of his on his left hand and he keeps fiddling with it. He's afraid of what losing the Ultimatrix would mean. I try to calm him, but I haven't had the time to build trust. Rex holds out his hand and Kirby holds out his arm. His other hand with the Ruby Ray of Ulo goes under the table. The boy I know will shoot if he thinks he has to.

Rex is silent for a long minute.

"OK Albedo is, in fact, an arrogant ass in your dimension. His signature on this thing is HUGE. Second, the core of it the part Azmuth and his team made is working great. Don't ask me to make another one but I can see that parts working normally. What's going on is your codon stream capacitor is not getting much of a charge. The log file shows a steady output since day one, then it drops off. Jenny, you have any insight here?"

I touch my own wrist and look at Kirby he knows now I used to have an Omnitrix of my own I can tell.

"Kirby dear, did you ever make it to Primus?"

The boy just shrugged.

"No idea what that is."

I frown and know this will hurt the boy.

"Primus is complicated but the simple answer is the planet-sized data storage center for the Omnitrix. It's meant as a literal backup facility for any species in the universe. Limitless storage space and contains whatever you'd need to reboot a race that dies out."

Kirby shook his head and stood up.

"So my cell phone's OK the towers busted?!"

Rex raises an eyebrow looks over at me and I nod just once letting him know its OK to keep rocking Kirby's world.

"I can get you a percentage if you bring me the right stuff."

The boy's eyes got wide.

"What do you mean percentage?"

Rex looked over at me and I just smile. Letting him know it OK to keep talking.

"What I mean Kirby is if we get the right parts we can get you a limited list of transformations. We have to install a local storage unit, and that will determine the load-out size. None of the back-end stuff Primus used to do will be there. That means one of your transformations has a problem and nothing is there to fix it. You just need to delete it and scan something else. The parts we get will determine how big a playlist I can give you."

Lyn puts her hand under the table, and I know that ruby on Kirby's other hand is no longer a threat. She speaks, not him. I can tell she's saving his pride by asking for him.

"What would you need, and what will it cost?"

Rex shoots his mouth off, and I shot him a look.

"Your first born, and a pint of blood a month for a year!"

I don't intervene to stop any violence, but I am ready to. I give Rex a look. Lyn I'm positive is stopping Kirby from shooting.

"Rex your brain damage is showing dear. Kirby, I don't charge my guests for help, I reward them when THEY help. Rex, what do we NEED."

My mechanical man just grinned like a lunatic.

"You only have a fraction of what we need to set up a closed system. Primary needs are a storage cylinder, a supply of codon juice. Every so often we will need to trade out the codon stuff. An updated genetic stabilizer would go a long way to keeping the thing working long term. Jenny, you got any ideas for a shopping trip?"

I look over at Kirby and Lyn and give it my best maternal smile.

"I think I do."

Unknown to me my little ghost girl was invisible floating over our heads the entire time.

Kirby, Lyn and I watch Gwendolyn go in a manner of speaking. It is dark as ever in the front yard and she is a ghost girl after all. Kirby is holding the Mask of Ah Punch to his face and gazing out the window into the perpetual night and winter storms. Lyn hovered nearby being protective. I can see why the Ultimatrix was absent from Kirby's wrist for the first time as Rex began his work.

Turning to leave I stopped myself. These two need to trust, but I'm afraid to give away too much. I stop and give a tired little smile.

"It'll be alright dears. Just you wait and see. I'm off to help as best I can."

I step from the room and move slowly and carefully in the direction of my chambers and my armor. I am honestly afraid for the closest thing to a daughter may ever have, but I've been where Kirby and Lyn are now. Wondering how I could have climbed so high only to fall so fast and so far. I'm keeping an ear on those two if not an eye.

For now, however, my main focus needs to be on a girl that isn't even here.

The armor snaps in place and my heart skips a beat. My poor heart doesn't like Lyn or Kirby I know.

Shush hehe you mustn't let anyone know I'm doing this. No not anyone, anyone at all! Je…. Eon Prime doesn't know, doesn't know. Nope, not even her!

I'm Gwendolyn. But not any of the ones you know. Nope, not any of those. I'm the REAL one before mean old Paradox made HER to be "a good influence".

For once this gets to be MY STORY! I hope it's my first one and not my only one, Hehehe.

Now that I'm healthy I can help out again. Someone in the house needs something and I'm glad to run off and get it. I love that place, no matter what anyone says. I had no place after my secret was out, and ran away. Anything I can do to help the people that live in that house I'm glad to do.

This time for my first real story I get to go out past the front yard even! It's not nearly as scary as it used to be going, going out through that spooky yard. No one sees me if I don't want to be seen or touches me if I don't want them too. That last one I like best for reasons, reasons.

Moving through the yard I look to my left and see silent spooky things peeking out from the side of the house. Those things still scared me. Leaving the yard and it's silent monsters behind I float through the night to the ruined city. This place is for the machines and they don't like people at all. One of them rolls right by me, OK right through me truth be told. It screamed out into the night.

"Destroy all flesh and the works of flesh!"

No one knows where they can form and I doubt anyone ever will. What we do know is they kill anything alive they find, and if they can't more just keep coming until they do.

Except for the house they know we live in it but NEVER go there.

Drifting through the head of one of the big mean things I stop and remember the last time I was there. "Billy + Gwendolyn" is written on the inside. I brought him here my Billy I did and protected him while he made a watch of his own. Then he left me he did the little …

Ahem, a lady shouldn't curse.

He opened his portal to that horrible place he calls "the real world", I know he did, he did! He was a creature of habit my Billy.

I land hidden in the head of one of the fallen robots and turned visible and tangible. Gathering all my power to me I cast my spell and the pretty green color that replaced my blue Mana forms my portal. Doing that I realize I only inhaled for the first time since leaving home to have the breath to cast.

I step into the portal leaving a world I love no matter how dangerous it is, and into Billy's stupid "real world". The fall sun is too bright and my skin itches in places it touches me. The Mister Smoothie parking lot is deserted, and I hardly feel the cold fall wind. I walk through the wall of the place and help myself to half the cash registers. I deserve a few treats for making the trip. I only take half, a girl dressed for summer with bulging pockets might stick out if I get caught visible.

While I do that I hear a voice I'll never forget. Ben's voice this Ben is older, older and not my Ben not at all at all.

He ordered a "double chocolate" smoothie and I grin a wide toothy grin. I love my new teeth.

The girl at the counter calls a manager when the drawer had no change I slip my ghostly lips into this Ben's cup and spit in his drink. All Ben's need to get cut down to size sometimes. That and it's funny when he takes a sip.

An hour later I have a pretty new coat with a hood and some dark glasses keep the sun from being annoying. Max's plumbing makes my heart sick even if it doesn't beat anymore. He was my grandfather too I found out later.

I slip inside unseen and unheard. I wait for a furry cat man to use the elevator and go down with him in case something clever is around to see things that aren't there. He smells of alien spice and wet fur.

The place underneath is like a movie set. Unimaginable things just sitting on desks or hanging on walls. I wonder if my Ben would have ended up in a place like this if not for that Paradox.

Moving through the place like a lost tourist I find what I'm after hours of looking. Only a blue bug man sort of saw me but he's in a cage and not about to help the people that put him there.

The vault is covered in a force field I'm not about to touch. The thing I'm here for is close enough to see, to see. The Nemetrix is a cheap knock-off, but it's got parts that old Rex can use.

I talk to him and no one knows. Rex is so sad like a wind-up man with important gear missing.

Being invisible so long is making me tired and I need to get going. So I talk to the blue bug man. His voice is distant and cold.

"I will help you daughter of Pariah but only if you wait for that fur-ball that put me in here."

I agree I do I do. Then I reach into the door controls and pull out the wires he tells me to just as the cat man walks past.

The fight was short and I think the bug man only wanted the others to see him fight the cat guy. No one noticed when I took the cat mans badge. That badge was also a key that let me take the Nemetrix and drop the badge nearby the fight. By the time they noticed I was back at the Mister Smoothie parking lot.

I am hungry and tired by the time I get here. Hungry in a way I've never felt, never felt. The girl from the counter is sitting under a tree talking angrily into a phone about getting fired. My teeth, my pretty new teeth come out all on their own. All pretty sharp, and serrated, serrated.

Creeping up behind her invisible I whisper in her right ear before grabbing her.

I'm not telling, not telling what I said, I said. It scared me too much, too much.

After I feel better, and something tiny deep inside worse.

I go home I want to sit by the fire, even if I can feel the heat.

Hush dears I was watching my little one the whole time.

Next: "Hero Time"


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5 "Hero Time"

All is silent in my crooked house. In the house, in the yard, and as always the silent things in the shadows are silent. They all feel the building tension of my anger. My crooked house is emptier than it once was. My dears, I was BETRAYED.

This broken realm makes manipulating time difficult, and my home is resistant against such things more so. Still, I try for her sake and my heart.

Time rolls backward in a flickering static kind of way. I see more than I want too, but not everything I need.

In Rex's workroom, an Ultimatrix was in pieces. It may have been an inelegant jury-rigged attempt at weaponizing a work of art, but it was still a force to be reckoned with. Gwendolyn handed over the Nemetrix as she beamed.

"I got it Rex! Do you see, do you see!?"

He pats her head and for a moment I forget what he did in the name of defending his world. I will never forget what I helped make him into that he might survive. Rex smiled as he spoke.

"I knew you could do it kiddo. Glad to have you back in action."

Kirby looked on with hungry eyes. Those toys he's collected really are just a security blanket. My past self is there watching Rex and not Kirby.

The Nemetrix opened beside the Ultimatrix. The star-shaped stabilizer from one was replaced with circular one from the other. Then complicated communications equipment is removed, and replaced with off-colored red storage cells. Then one is now useless as anything more than spare parts, the other one closed itself. Rex looked up at Kirby.

"Do you know the shepherd's prayer, my son?"

Kirby raised an eyebrow.

"Dude the last time I was in a church it this weirdo place in Florida. I think they worshiped Tom Cruz?"

Rex laughed, and it was an off-key thing half synthesized and it made our blood run cold.

"Hahaha! No, my man. I mean Alan Shepard the astronaut. They strapped him to a rocket and before they lit that candle he said "Dear God, don't let me eff this up"."

With that, he rebooted the Ultimatrix. The watch face turned blue, and science that literally equaled any magic did its work. The face turned orange, and Rex shrugged.

"OK, we aren't dead."

He put his hand on the watch again and spoke in a synthesized voice.

"Geno-archetype mismatch. Incompatible with a sentient host. Primus connection lost. Plumber Badge Functions not found. Failsafe 1 to 4 offline. Override code "ALBEDO" cannot be verified."

Kirby smiled and removed a black rectangle from his pocket.

"It's alright the last two are there all the time. Part of the hack job Albedo did in order to get this thing to work."

He held the device to the Ultimatrix while Rex watched this time.

"Delete Geno-archetypes and reboot."

The screen flashed blue again and then green. Kirby put the thing back on as Rex quipped.

"Nice trick Kirby, we need to hang out more I like people with an ace up their sleeve."

The look on the boy's face was a classic fake smile meant for TV or a movie. Kirby opened a small box he had placed on the counter. He removed an oversized dried out finger-like digit from the box.

"Why have just one, buddy?"

The watch flashed yellow, and a new hologram appeared on Kirby's list for a total of 2, his own human form included. Kirby smiled.

"The Highbreed were powerful, this is a good start. Time for a test."

Rex frowned.

"Sorry man looks like animals take up less space than anything you can have a conversation with. You've got like room for five total, and one of those has to be used for YOUR DNA or you're not turning back into you."

With that Kirby left to test the watch in the yard Gwendolyn following behind.

In the backyard I watch Zak return from the forest. Its predators silent as church mice in the presence of their betters. I keep looking down at my hands I feel my armor calling me. Something is not right, and if I was any other place or time I'd be wearing it.

"What do you have my boy?"

Zak looked at me his eyes ancient things. His voice wasn't his voice, and it wasn't that aping of Argost's voice he uses when his trauma is showing.

"Kirby and Gwendolyn came from the house. Lyn's sent is strong in the yard, and her tracks are deep like she was carrying more weight. They made their way through the woods to the forest portal. Their trail is easy to spot they didn't try to hide. I couldn't track the portal so that means they made HER open it for them."

My heart, my poor, poor heart breaks a little. My voice is still and without emotion.

"Zak, did she go with them willingly or was she forced?"

The ancient hunter answered with the boy. I wonder if they are finally becoming one.

"She wouldn't go with them, she loves it here. No creature acts against its nature not really unless it's forced."

Then the door opened and Rex walked out. He hasn't left his room since I dragged him there so very long ago. He spoke like him being here was nothing, and there was no danger at all from it.

"I liked the kid. She was the only one other than you that came down there to talk to me."

That was comforting and terrifying all at the same time. My heart almost changes its mind about Rex, almost. My heart can't belong to Rex ever. I keep my word, I always keep my word. I speak the truth to Rex.

"You can help, but only YOU CAN HELP. Computron isn't welcome, we have a deal about him remember?"

I swear he looked more human than ever as he answered me.

"Damn right I do. EL Diablo stays in his cage. The green man and the monkey wouldn't want me letting him out."

Whatever that means I don't know and don't care. What people did before coming here doesn't matter. What matters is I welcome them into this crooked home, this place for monsters with no other place. All I ask is that they do the odd favor, and not hurt one another. Lyn and Kirby were welcomed into my home. If my little one made up her mind to go with them, then I'll let her go, no one is forced to stay here. If not they betrayed the family, and I only know one way to deal with that.

Far far away, and long long ago.

Bellwood, NY, September, Earth-255 furthest edge of the central finite curve.

The day it all ended or began depending on your point of view. The day I lost my Omnitrix. I cried, I begged, only my brother spoke in my favor.

"Grandpa, are we really doing this? After Animo, after Vilgax?"

Grandpa Max spoke with complete authority.

"Benjamin Kirby Tennyson, you keep out of this. You're a good boy, but your sister can talk you into anything. Jennifer, it is over we did a lot of good this summer but the Omnitrix is coming off. I know all about Kevin."

I told you no lies I was crying and begging. Coddling the watch as if it would help.

"Grandpa pleaseee nononononono! I didn't mean it! Kevin was with Vilgax at Niagara Falls. I just, I just PLEASE!"

Shame prevents me from telling you what came next, but the watch was gone when I woke up. My brother was there waiting in the dark. Getting him to do what I wanted him to do was easy most of the time. This was something else. After that summer, Ben worshiped the ground Grandpa Max walked on. This was the day I NEEDED him, this was the day I figured out how to get him to do anything. He sounded like a ten-year-old never should. Like an adult.

"Do you get why you're here? Do you know what's wrong with you?"

I looked up at him with bloodshot green eyes. I was exhausted my arm hurt, and everything in me just felt broken. Ten years old but I felt used up. It's not that I didn't speak, I couldn't. Never in my life did I feel so vulnerable. After a summer being the baddest kid to ever save the day it was shattering my dears.

"There's just something missing Jenny. I don't know what, but you don't care when you hurt someone. I don't think you mean it. If you did Animo would be... like Kevin. I didn't tell Grandpa he asked me but I didn't tell him. He figured it out on his own."

Then I swear he hugged me. After a lifetime spent getting him to do whatever was funny or convenient no matter if it was bad for him, my brother hugged me. The horrid pain got a little better, and I got the faintest idea about what he was saying. It'd be years before my therapist would call me a codependent sociopath. The only thing I knew at the time was that I was empty inside, and Ben had whatever I was missing. It was like I lived in a world where everyone else wasn't real and didn't matter till I found a real person right next to me. I hugged him back and whispered.

"He just thinks I killed Kevin cuz it made me happy or something. He's afraid of what I might do, but you're not. You're my hero Ben."

I could feel it in him went I said the words "You're my hero". It's all he wanted really. To be someone's hero. If he was mine I knew he'd do anything for me. So I never even mentioned that he got to keep his magic book and I lost the Omnitrix. It didn't matter I didn't need the book, I had HIM. He was my family, not Sandra or Carl, not my stuck up cousin, and most definitely not our Grandfather. He'd be that part of me that was missing, and we'd do things together so many things.

But until then he'd be my conscience.

Five years later the Highbreed stepped out of the dark and threatened everything. Literally everything. They thought life shouldn't go on without them. The arrogant bastards.

Much older, and maybe a little wiser we walked the dirt road to the trailer park that old Grandpa Max lived in.

Yes, I played nice with him for my brother. He knew it, I knew it, but we did it anyway. A family does that stuff for each other. Ben was the only family I had really, my good influence.

He had his soccer gear on, a shiny new medal around his neck. I was dressed for track and field because running really fast unlike a martial arts class doesn't tempt me to do things to people that have it coming.

Don't look at me like that, MY cousin Gwen was a clone of her mother, and needed an ass-kicking.

A DNAlien goon steps out of the shadows and tries to kill us. Ben had his magic, I have a switchblade. It cracked two of my ribs, but I stopped that thing. Me the one without any powers. I stabbed it right in its one BIG EYE and it was over.

Ben fixed my ribs, pretty much.

We found the message from our grandfather. He wanted Ben to use the watch. The old bastard never even mentioned me. Still, I looked at Ben with a smile on my face as I spoke.

"Remember that fight at the truck stop when the watch got clogged up with mana Ben? Mana's bad for the watch. Grandpa was there he knows that. The old man doesn't know you still have the book does he, Ben?"

The look on his face said it all. I'd started to rub off on him. That made me feel good inside the way few things ever have.

When he found the Omnitrix, and he looked up at me I swear my mouth watered. I'd have made him beg for power like that. He made me promise. That made me feel that empty place inside me again, and wish it could be filed somehow.

"Jenny this is important. Tell me you can do this, and not be something scary. Please, Jenny, promise me."

I swear I'd have done ANYTHING to get that watch back.

Oh for the last time we were fifteen. Get your minds OUT of the GUTTER! It would be more than a year before we started sleeping together.

Don't judge dears, he was good for me.

The day we won our war. The day we got our grandfather back. Is also the day I gave the watch back. The old man could see the VENOM in my eyes. I did it ANYWAY, for my BROTHER. I DIDN'T say a word to the old man, I just gave the Omnitrix back. The way he looked at me later will never leave me, but I don't care. I kept my word dammit. I saved us all to PROVE I could be like Ben!

Then Vilgax the conqueror fell out of the sky screaming MY NAME. Then I killed the old man to get MY WATCH back. The world needed saving, and it wasn't by people at retirement age. Vilgax took our grandfather and his entire team apart like nothing. I caved the bastards head in with a rock right there. He took MY brother out there with HIS team of LOSERS and almost got him killed.

He wouldn't give me the watch.

I killed him and took it.

Then I saved the world again.

I was NOT and am NOT sorry.

Dear Grandfather should have listened. Instead, he betrayed me.

Then I saved the world AGAIN. This time I KEPT MY WATCH, and MY BROTHER TOO.

They didn't help when the monster called Professor Paradox came for me.

My hunter and my mechanical man debated the nature of the universe.

Zak barked.

"No, it doesn't work like that! We use the SAME spell there is a mathematical element to it yea BUT ITS AN EMOTION DRIVEN SPELL. None of this matters she doesn't use mana anymore. Ectoplasm has a negative charge!"

Rex twitched like he was about to blow a gasket. He sounded more robotic, and I was getting worried.

"How you rationalize it does not matter. It exists in a world with rules, laws and forces that obey those laws. Restructuring approach. The spells targeting component does it have five or six points of reference? Five points in space and a point of origin?"

Zak calmed down a bit.

"Umm yes and no. Five points and a cantrip that focuses on you. That would be a point of origin for most casters."

Rex ran his fingers through his hair and it looked like wires in the light.

"OK, now that means regardless of how the portal was powered it should have cut through the dimensional fabric in a way I understand or something close. Since we know what you need to do-oh never mind she doesn't care and I lost you an hour ago."

Dear oh dear, my sensor package doesn't like the machine growing from his hand. It started spinning and doesn't so much as open a portal as it undoes the closing of the one that they left through. Like watching a cut heal in reverse.

We step into a Mister Smoothy parking lot. My sensor pack takes a heartbeat or two to adjust to being in this universe. To identify what universe we are in, and I am shocked to learn two things. We are in the universe Gwendolyn came to for the nemetrix. Kirby and Lyn couldn't have reached here on their own without help. If they'd asked I'd have had the girl share the spell.

Oh, and the parking lot is a blood bath. Just what I expected.

Cars are flipped over, the restaurant is on fire, and a trail of destruction leads up the street. Zak is looking off to the side of the parking lot near a line of police tape.

"She was here hours ago. She feeds on a human. Gwendolyn must have been avoiding me at the house knowing I'd smell it on her."

I roll back time easily uncaring of who is watching. With this mess, someone IS. I'm sure.

"Correct dear boy. She took some and looked afraid of doing it. Bringing Lyn and Kirby there was a trap knowing the authorities would be here. The ultimatrix worked so her trap didn't. I can see the anger in their eyes at our dear lost Gwendolyn. They have a hold on her but only just so."

Rex chimes in probably doing a parallel search of his own.

"They can't handle her well enough without help. They think you'll come after them for leaving and want the girl for protection. Idiots, you've let a dozen people leave that I've seen at least. They need the tech to wrangle her, that means Fenton Works. That means old man ClockWork. One needs to be a dedicated blocker or that dusty old ghost will be on use for sure."

I look at my mechanical man and smile under my helmet. My heart doesn't like it, but I can't help it they TOOK that girl from MY HOUSE. Rex understands the pure binary clarity of that.

"Oh that will be your job dear, Rex, I have a child to save and a pound of flesh to claim."

He tries to sound human, he fails but I appreciate it though. I know how hard it is to pretend you have a heart.

"The pair of us together verse the ghost of time? The odds are not in our favor. How far are we taking this, Prime?"

I can almost feel the enlightened self-interest being calculated in that mostly machine brain of his. Trying to assign a numeric value to an intangible non-binary concept. Things like us are just not meant for love. That doesn't mean we don't crave it like everyone else. We, after all, started out as human.

I speak the cold hard truth.

"Priorities are getting our girl back. If we can't do that, we get out. Clockwork will never stop watching Lyn and Kirby if he knows I am mad for vengeance. No that I won't take it if I can afford it. One way or another this ends here today."

Zak chimes in and I can hear the venom if his words. I know he's beyond hearing anyone at this point. Such a shame.

"If they hurt her, I'm killing them."

Rex looks at him coldly then at me. We time walkers know where his story ends.

Our arrival at Fenton Works in Amity Park is a silent one. The sun is down, and the fall night is a cold one. The street looks like the set of an action movie cars flipped, billboards on fire. The Plumbers will be here soon I know it.

We should stop and leave NOW I know, but I can't just let someone be taken from me. If they choose to leave, that's one thing. I let Billy Billions go, even knowing the hell he'd go though trapped in a child's body. I let those two into my HOME and they TOOK MY GIRL. I can't let that go unanswered.

The booming voice of a highbreed lord breaks the silence of the moment as we walk into the end of someone else's battle.

"LOWBROW FILTH, STAND ASIDE!"

Drew Saturday sent a bolt of blue mystic fire into Kirby's face.

"You are a real sweet talker kid!"

I look down and Zak, MY Zak and know this is our last adventure together. I swear I want to cry, but he loves that girl like the last bit of innocence he's got left. He doesn't know the horrible things she's done. I do, and I love her anyway. At least as much as I'm capable of that emotion.

Lyn Tennyson ignited the night sky while a Phantom and a Pterosaur voiced their objections.

"I have had a bad day, how about you three just buzz off already?!"

Lyn snapped.

"Hand over a thermos and we are gone. Keep playing the hero, I'm just going to keep breaking bones ghost boy!"

Rex is making ticking sounds in frequencies only a time traveler will ever hear. My Zak speaks, his eyes things of fire.

"There Kur is close. The Phantom girl is with him in the lab."

I look down at him.

"How do you know that Zak?"

He just shrugs.

"Kur is a cryptid."

I can't argue with that logic. The plan I weave is the one with the best chance of Zak surviving. It's not going to work, but I have to try.

"Zak, stay near me. We'll go through the house to the lab. Rex stays here, and does what he can to blind any other time walkers that might be looking."

I look over at Rex he knows what's coming, and will do what he can. I wonder what will become of him if I don't survive? My crooked house... would not be as welcoming without me I am sure. Still, if anyone lives through this it's Rex, he did, after all, survive a dying universe.

We move through the chaos of battle unnoticed by the combatants. The front door is kicked open already and we make our way through a wrecked home half suburbanite dwelling and half science fiction enclave.

As we reach the basement layer containing a portal to flip side of our universe, maybe all universes their trap snaps shut.

First the eco-powered ghost shield springs into place around the entire block. Ectoplasm is like mana with a negative charge. It's extra-dimensional energy, and to be honest dears time is just the 4th dimension. With time and effort, I could push through, but defenses are like dressing for the cold, you do it in LAYERS in case one fails to do the job.

Second, the armored door of the ghost portal is OPEN. We watched as Zak, walked out with a Revonnahgander in blue Proto-tech armor. I hear footsteps behind me, and my armor registers NOTHING. I have to look over my shoulder to see Drew Saturday, with Ben and Gwen Tennyson.

Stupid stupid stupid me. Drew speaks with that bitchy tone in her voice.

"Hi there, if you haven't guessed Eon, Professor Paradox called."

MY Zak growled. Literally growled at them. I try to talk our way out of this while forcing my armor to adapt to whatever is blocking it. My heart oh my what is my heart doing? Is it beating again really beating?

"Just give us the girl, and we leave. We don't care about Lyn or Kirby, not anymore."

Ben runs his fucking mouth off as usual.

"Like that's going to happen. You took the Nemetrix, we got so many different versions of people around here my head hurts, oh yea your weird not Gwen flipping ATE SOMEONE. Lose the armor Eon you don't walk away this time."

My Zak started frothing at the mouth. There Zak looks away. Drew tries she really does.

"Zak baby I know you're from through the looking glass, but I am here to help no matter what you've been through."

That stupid bitch said the wrong thing. Goodbye Zak, I tried I really did. He roared, and everything happened at once.

"I don't need your help, there is NOTHING WRONG WITH ME!"

He charged Drew. Ben as always went for the Omnitrix, Gwen transformed. I moved to the weak links. I smash the unarmored head into a wall dripping him. The girl Danielle was too young to know better, too full of confidence not to try. She sends an ecto-powered blast into my chest plate scorching it. I blur across the room and get the girl by the throat.

Both Zak's eyes light with otherworldly fire. It doesn't matter Gwen has him in a mana bubble in a heartbeat. Drew was smart enough to tumble through the chaos of it all and put her sword to my armored neck. She speaks.

"Put her down Eon, I took you apart when I was 18 I'm better now."

Dannielle fumed under my grasp.

"OH COME ON REALLY?!"

Ben, fortunately, turned into a tiny fish with legs.

"Walkatrout, greattttt."

I look at Drew and with a though make the visor transparent. My voice is as cold as I can make it. I can feel my Zak starting to lose control, there Zak looks like he wants to be sick.

"Let us be clear, I am Eon PRIME, and you and I have never met Doctor Saturday. Last warning, give my girl back, I give you yours and we all go home ALIVE."

Danny Phantom appear through the wall and froze my helmet in about ten pounds of solid ice I knew I'd lost track of someone.

"Chill out will ya!"

Danielle pulled at my wrist the armor giving just a little under her otherworldly little hands.

"My week has been SO BAD. I get dumped, have to call the guy ANYWAY, now I'm the flipping hostage!"

Ben ran his . Damn him.

"Listen lady, there is no way you walk out of this on top. We already got your goons, I fixed your ghost freaked Gwen, you're in our trap, and our backup plan is Paradox for crying out loud. Just get over yourself before I turn into something less adorable and put you down myself."

My Zak just whispered from inside Gwen's shield.

"They fixed her? Draco ignis."

The room exploded with mystic fire. Gwen's shield shattered, and Zak finally became Kur heaven help him. His skin took on a scaled appearance. His teeth became fangs, and my vision went blurry as matters escalated further.

"Time out."

The room froze as time stopped. The ancient ghost of time walked through the portal or floated as it where. Fortunately, that fire blast got the ice off my head or this would have been a scene. His voice was something that echoed across the ages.

"This was a bit much for Paradox so I've decided to be a bit more hands on this time if you'll forgive the pun."

I know I can't beat this thing but "fake it till you can make it" as they say.

"The girl got kidnaped. I'm just here to bring her back. No one is with me unwillingly Clockwork."

It dawns on me I never really thought about his name, but he speaks and I get distracted.

"Really Jennifer? Let us just take a look back at that shall we?"

The arrogant old ghost actually takes the time to put on a show. I mean he's got literally all the time in the world, but does he really think I'm entirely powerless? No matter he's got center stage for the moment.

Time bends backward despite my wants and part of me is 17 again. Part of me holds my Ben's hand while they put our grandfather in the ground. Part of me promises him we will do the right thing and look after our world the way the old man would have wanted. Part of me lays naked with him under the moon and we count the five thousand dollars we found in the rust bucket. Part of me takes the deal Maltruant offers me to fight in his time war and convinces my brother it's the only way to save our world. Part of me is stabbed in the heart by Paradox for my trouble.

It was a wild weekend what can I tell you?

Rex's world is on the brink of destruction as machines turn on their creators. The Alpha that leads them in the war against mankind too much for anyone.

"I contain an Omega brother Rex you cannot defeat an army without end."

"Wanna bet Jerkface?"

The Meta Nanite in Rex's chest allows for a war waged between ticks of the clock. Every move and counter move is a work of generations. Time, however, can only be bent so far before it breaks.

Paradox's sword goes through the boy's heart just like mine, with a whisper.

"I'm so sorry, but your world is a danger to every other world."

It keeps going and the part of me that isn't there is trying to figure out what the heck clockwork is doing, but gets distracted when part of me carries Gwendolyn into the house for the first time. She covered in blood, none of it hers thankfully. The tiers in her eyes choke me up even ten years later. This bastard makes me listen again ash she sobs.

"I don't want to be like them anymore I don't, I don't. Not even a little, I'll be the monster, the monster. The heroes all just left me, left me."

I whispered back.

"They turned on me too, even after I saved them. So, you can stay with me then."

The image of Gwendolyn eating that girl in the parking lot was a nice touch, but...oh...I'm not the only one seeing this, am I? They all are because time isn't stopped you lying little ghost. Time is slowed to a crawl and the images speed up so THEY CAN ALL SEE.

I realize this because of no part of me is in the ghost zone right now, but Rex is, and he's showing me something too.

Danny left a ghostly duplicate to guard Lyn Kirby and my Gwendolyn. That duplicate dissolves as Rex kicks its spine up between its ears. He moves robotically to out lost girl. The energy bonds on her wrists gone with Danny.

"They took it away Rex. They took it all away! Ten years I kept that thing inside me so I could be something ELSE, and they just took it away with a wave of that stupid Omnitrix."

Rex soulless eyes don't so much look at her as lock on to her. My tin man doesn't try to have a heart, but he does realize some of us are inclined to.

"Point of attention, Gwendolyn. I am not Jennifer Tennyson and I do not place value on some indefinable aspect I have lost."

Something flickers to life as he speaks like a lightbulb that isn't entirely burnt out trying to part the darkness.

"It's kind of fun sometimes with it comes back for an hour or two."

Then it was gone again.

"Further point of attention I will not fight, if I can not win."

My girl, my beautiful little girl, I just realized she's not stuttering anymore. My heart...

"Rex, I'm going in that portal, and I am getting her back. If I don't make it I don't care."

Pain cuts through me like a hot iron as Rex turns to Lyn and Kirby their energy bonds are gone.

"Point of attention designations unimportant. You will no longer be welcome in that house, but I offer freedom if you fight with us."

Kirby looked at Lyn.

"What do you say? In it, till we win it, or we go down like we could. That was the deal right?"

"Damn right Kirby."

My left arm is numb, I am having a heart attack. Why am I having a heart attack?

Clockwork answers me like he's been listening in the entire time.

Because I have been Jennifer Tennyson, or Eon Prime as if either of those were your real name. You are having a heart attack because that body your wearing is supported by your brother's sacrifice and he is no longer helping you. Your armors opening, so why don't you come out and join us?

Fine you bastard, I will!

The seals on my armor fail and the armor opens as my body deflates like an Anodite leaving its meat suit. No, my dears, I'm not one of those either. My ectoplasmic form congeals as Clockwork starts running his mouth again.

"Everyone stop a moment and behold. She is Jenny Purgatory the ghost of fallen heroes. See what happens when let yourselves think that because what you have done your above anyone's morality but your own."

Then that little bitch Danielle says.

"Your own brother, that was like a nightmare. All he ever did was try to keep you from making bad decisions, and all you ever did was help other people make worse ones."

My disembodied voice echo's in the room.

"You're nightmare was my love story."

I swear I form a body out of ectoplasm just so I have hands to wring her little neck. What do I look like? Oh kind of like my armor, but with more curves, no need to hide being a girl anymore. Oh and I ditch the helmet for that Ember McLain flaming hairdo. What can I say that ghost has style. For some reason, there is a heart-shaped hole straight through my chest I know will never be filled and if my brothers left me I don't want it to be ever. Are you getting this Clockwork, and not looking behind you?

Rex flew through the portal like a rocket and stuck that machine he used earlier to reopen the portal into Clockwork's ghostly chest. When it started to spin time ticked sideways. Between two ticks of the clock, Kirby and Ben fought for an hour. Sorry dears Kirby had an Ultimatrix with one alien in it and a few trinkets. Ben was Ben and the Omnitrix is after all not a knock off.

Lyn and Gwen had ten minutes to trade sparky energy attacks.

My Gwendolyn spent three days crossing the room to get to our Zak.

Drew, Danielle, and the Zak I don't care about had a few hours to talk I think.

I got my grubby little hands on Clockworks staff. Then I brought it down on his ghostly head. It made a satisfying splatting sound.

"Tell Paradox he's next. "

I then drop my Trump card Paradox and Clockwork can both go hell I don't need the armor to take either of them. I reached inside myself for the place where light never found its way. Then I give a tiny bit of that unending void to the world.

Black fire sills out from my heart shaped chest opening and engulfs the room like the fall of night. One by one they all fall down.

Ben mutters.

"I don't really deserve any of this. I just got lucky."

Gwen whispers.

"That girl said they made me for Ben. Is that I'll I can ever be someone else's…"

Zak slumped over.

"I am the monster."

Danielle sobbed.

"Just a mistake … all I'll ever be …."

Drew struggled at least.

"I failed my son."

The cat man finally sat up ranting in tongues I no longer have a translator to understand.

Clockwork doesn't have a head at the moment but his wiggles like he feels it.

None of mine even felt it. The void is in them all already.

Then oh hell I lost track of Danny again and he is right behind me. The ghost boy screamed and it cut across the skin of reality. My ghostly form threatens to lose integrity. I am not used to running around with no body.

The ghost boy looks down at me and his eyes look wrong.

"What you showed me I've seen a monster like that before, and I almost turn into him. I won't let you take anyone else! You are a ghost lady, that makes you my business! "

He levels one of those stupid thermoses at me, and for a second I think I'm done. Then Gwendolyn gets to Zak, and the dance of the immortals once again comes to its end.

All of us even Clockwork witness the passing of one immortal, and the birth of another. Even time itself pauses as if in deference. We will never know what those two said to each other in those last moments. Not with three-time travelers duking it out in front of an artificial portal into another universe.

What we do see is Zak dissolving into white lightning, and Gwendolyn changed. Her eyes take on a gold color and vertical slits like a cat. Nothing else anyone can see. There is an aura around my girl now as if the world can feel the difference and is warry somehow.

She turned her new eyes on the one Zak, we had left.

"Did anyone ever tell you that you are really bad at being KUR?"

Drew found he way to her feet a look in her eyes I can recognize respect even.

"Screwed up or not I am a parent I don't have the luxury of a pity party. Get away from my son."

I wonder if there is a reason it's these two with a life they are responsible for that shrugged my attack off so fast?

Oh dear, I must be missing my armors computer because this is the second time I have failed to close that stupid ghost portal. Professor Paradox walked in through the portal, and put that same sword cane he killed me with to my neck.

"Hello Jennifer, or should I say Miss Purgatory. That was news to me mind you. Old man Clockwork normally buts in and prevents me from more direct action. I am sure with my preventing you from preventing HIM from growing a new head we can call this an END. Lets just all part ways with no more loss of life, please. "

Rex spoke in a voice so synthesized is sounded like an old computer game.

"Point of attention all parties. There are four primary time travelers and two secondary time travelers in this immediate vicinity."

Ben actually sounded insulted as he waved the Omnitrix around.

"Umm secondary I have an alien in here that will take all four of ya."

His Gwen was too busy looking ill to reprimand him so Paradox gave it a try.

"Benjamin, Serena and Bellicus would not help matters. I am here to de-escalate this situation. Simply depart, and leave Clockwork to me please Purgatory."

I look at Rex, and honestly can't tell where he stops and Computron begins. Gwendolyn wants a fight. She's newborn and full of power. It's best if I take her away from here. Without speaking I walk across the room to my fallen armor. I kneeled down enough to recover something I dropped, and pull a pin inside the armor to boot. In a moment the armor is sizzling and sparking. Then I retrieve MY Zak's claw and take Gwendolyn by the hand over to Rex.

Clockwork finally gets his head together and sits up.

"Paradox what have you done now?"

Just out of spite, pure malice really we all end up together Lyn, Kirby, Rex, Gwendolyn and myself. We must have looked like the cover of a comic book. I clear my throat.

"Ahem, the ghost shield please."

Paradox never took his eyes off me as he spoke.

"Daniel if you please. The space-time continuum is a little tattered here for me to do it myself just now."

Danny, I kid you not, had an app on his bloody cell phone to control that stupid shield. It shuts off, and I move my family away from that place. I, of course, LEAVE LYN AND KIRBY BEHIND. They made their choice, and between my two great enemies Clockwork and Professor Paradox I know I'll never get a clean shot at either of them. So this my dear betrayers will have to do. Count yourselves lucky.

Epilogue one

It is enough that I am called Clockwork, and by decree of the all mighty Observants, I am the master of time. This mess much as I loth to admit it is my responsibility. Paradox as ever frustrates me.

"Plans were in motion Professor, your intervention was not required."

He checked his watch instead of looking at me.

"At the risk of sounding like young Benjamin you planned to be laying on the ground without a head for the majority of that fight?"

I swear I am two steps from violence but I have a headache and the children are still watching.

"Professor why don't you see to the substantial damage to the space-time continuum in this area while I make sure everyone gets home safely."

He looks grim for a moment, and I relax. He is getting better, another four or five cycles of the time war and he'll be alright.

"Lyn and Kirby? They are off continuity, but close enough to make finding there home reality difficult. Even a little time spent in that horrid place changes anyone inside."

I nod my new head at him.

"Continuity dear Paradox is off continuity all the time. The plumbers and the Chronosapien Master Gear will either contain them or get them home."

He wants to object I know, but there's so much to do and spending a century arguing with me does little.

"Right then, I leave them in YOUR keeping then."

Oh, you little. . . .

"Yes of course."

And he's off leaving me with a room full of more headaches. Most of them are resolving themselves I'm glad to see.

Drew is with Zak.

"Kiddo you ok?"

"Mom I think that whole Zak Monday, Argost Kur thing was a lot different than I thought it was. I think no buddy canceled anyone out, I think I ate somebody."

Drew really is a good mother she doesn't miss a beat.

"Umm Zak Argost lives remember? You might have gotten a bite but you didn't eat anyone. The rest well we just work that out as we go."

Lyn and Kirby lied as usual.

"Magister Blonko we formally request asylum under the interdimensional refugee subsection of the Kacey Kelly accords. We were abducted by the entity Purgatory and forced to commit many horrific acts."

Rook didn't blink.

"To quote an earthling saying. "I may have been born in the night time it was however not last night time." You are both under arrest."

Kirby looked at his diminished ultimatrix and before he could say anything Lyn did.

"We understand how this must look and we surrender Magister Blanco. We can sort this out once we are in custody."

Kirby looked at her and she just put a hand on his shoulder. Smart girl, there are six people here and both of them are exhausted.

Danny and Danielle took a minute to sort things out.

"Danny just to be clear I love you in a "clothes on" kind of way. All this keeping it in the family talk is making me glad I skipped dinner."

Danny laughed. The girl is both 14 and 2 all at the same time. It must make for interesting days in this house.

"Hahaha oh man that spider venom is making my head spin."

Ben went to Gwen.

"You ok there Gwen? Just saying there's been like two nutty versions of you tonight and all."

Gwen just ignored him and oh my I'm still in the room with them. Still recovering from the loss of my head it seems. I do nothing as Gwen walks over to me.

"Umm mister Clockwork."

I take a deep breath and make sure that no one other then Gwen hears me talking.

"Yes, miss Tennyson? Professor Paradox did in one timeline sip club soda and talk to your father at a bar once upon a time. He then went home to your mother instead of making a life-altering error. This is not the same thing as removing Gwendolyn O'Donnell from existence or creating you. You are far more common in the omniverse due to the fact that realities with a Gwendolyn Tennyson tend to survive the coming of the Diagon."

The I do a double take as she says.

"Umm, thanks I figured it was something like that but I actually wanted to ask you if Professor Paradox knows you're well you know future him. Just wanted to avoid stuff getting awkward later on."

I am so very old now I've started forgetting how the young can surprise you.

"Miss Tennyson Paradox means well but sometimes certain details are lost on him."

I'll keep the rest of our conversation to just the two of us for now.

Epilogue two

I stand before my crooked house with everything that matters to me and everything that once did as well. I kneel before the silent things that dwell in the shadows beside my home. I am wary of these silent things but more so I do this for what I've lost and what I'm about to lose.

I hold out the tiny purple glowing sphere that was once my heart in a way that nothing else will ever be and whisper.

"I loved you but you betrayed me. Goodbye, brother dear."

Like blowing I kiss I send my brother's soul to silent things that he might walk among them when then finish gnawing on him of course.

I back away slowly and return to Rex and Gwendolyn who are waiting silently. I hope they never betray me.

We move through the yard to the house and its crooked door happy to be home. My armor is gone and my illusion with it. My enemies know me, know my name is Jenny Purgatory and know I seek lost souls of heroes fallen. This complicated every possible future going forward I'm sure.

It doesn't matter there will always be so-called heroes that find themselves brought low for one reason or another. A few of those will go to places were heroes fallen or otherwise never should. Some of them will, of course, find me waiting.

Don't worry my dears all are welcome.

END

Note

Thanks to my beta reader DrWhoFan13. Double for this chapter it has so many characters in the same room keeping them all straight was so hard I'm sure there was nearly a regeneration into number 14.


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